The notorious thing about Freewrites typewriters is they are not cheap, not by a long shot.
TheGen 3 typewritergoes for $650 MSRP.
TheTravellersits at a discombobulating $500.
The Freewrite Alpha doesn’t exactly feel like a $350 device, but it has a very fun keyboard to type away on.Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
Freewrite Alpha
An e-typewriter with a simple keyboard and 1x6.5-inch screen.
Astrohaus' latest lightweight electronic keyboard sporting a small screen and keyboard.
PRICE
$350
LIKE
The screen size means you have to write without looking back.
There’s a kickstand in the back to give the Alpha a bit of lift, but I did feel my wrists sliding down the plastic a fair bit.Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
The mechanical keyboard sounds great and is fun to jot down with.
DISLIKE
The shell feels too cheap for the Alpha’s price.
There’s no backlight to the LCD screen.
There’s a kickstand in the back to give the Alpha a bit of lift, but I did feel my wrists sliding down the plastic a fair bit.Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
What makes the Alpha interesting isnt the barebones design or the lightweight frame.
The Alpha scrubs the idea of a writing rig down to its bare necessities.
The display is only 1 inch tall and 6.5 inches wide.
You’ll have to learn a few keyboard shortcuts to access the Alpha’s menus.Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
Its enough for two to four lines of text to show up on-screen at a time.
You dont have the option of looking at what youve already written past the last sentence.
Theres no spell check.
Just remember, there’s no spell check.Photo: Kyle Barr / Gizmodo
Writing on the Alpha is like driving a speeding freight train over a frozen lakebed.
These were simple typewriter-like devices with a keyboard and a small LCD screen.
This made them a notorious tool for writers wanting to avoid distractions.
The Alpha is an AlphaSmart with a better keyboard, battery, and cloud connectivity.
The small screen is a reflective monochromatic FSTN LCD with a fast refresh.
The LCD display shows text with enough clarity, but its not backlit.
This means youll need a desk lamp or be forced to write during the day.
Typing with the built-in kickstand flipped down; I felt my wrists start to slide down the plastic surface.
I cant speak to the white, speckled edition releasing simultaneously.
The rig is minimalistic.
The Alpha only has one single port, a USB-C, for both charging and offline data transfer.
It supports a 2.4GHz wifi connection for cloud syncing.
Moreover, the Freewrite has an awe-inspiring stated 100-hour battery life.
The Alpha uses wifi to upload users work to several cloud services automatically.
Freewrite offers customers a free subscription to its web app called Postbox.
The mechanical keyboard uses Kailh Choc V2 switches.
Theyre not the clackiest keys, but thats for the Alphas benefit.
Whats more impressive is I never felt tired of typing while on the Alpha.
But is the Freewrite Alpha fun to bang out with?
Yes, it is.
Given enough time, it could become my favorite keyboard I use daily.
Does The Freewrite Alpha Actually Help You Write More?
Is this truly a distraction-free machine, as Astrohaus likes to claim?
A Freewrite reduces the capacity for distractions, but it doesnt exhaust them.
But the Alpha does have a place, and its all thanks to the devices inherent limitations.
All writing is rewriting.
You cant revise what doesnt exist.
Every writer has a different workflow, but the maxim remains largely true for all wordsmiths.
All first drafts are crap.
Theyre rubbish, with the occasional gold nugget to be excavated somewhere inside the hidden dung piles.
Despite everything, I can say the Alpha helped me write.
Mind you, theres a big caveat.
Like so many other folks in my profession, I no longer have that much luxury of time.
But I look at the Freewrite Alpha, and my thoughts turn to writing.
Half of this is psychological.
I want to write, and now I have a rig tethered to my writing identity.
That can only be a good thing for somebody whos struggled to pump out paragraphs consistently.
It truly doesnt matter what you use to write.
But do you gotta spend $350 for a unit to change your writing habits?
I could get aquality Chromebookfor a little more money upfront.
If youre buying the Freewrite Alpha, youre making a promise to yourself.
Youre making a declaration that this rig is how you will write.
For some, like me, that was enough.
This isnt a magic wand.
You have to put in the effort.
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